When Europe's best national football teams kick off the UEFA EURO 2016 on June 10th, host France and World Cup Champion Germany will, mathematically speaking, also be the odds-on favorites as statisticians headed by Achim ...

Saffron from Spain is one of the world's most superior varieties, but the majority of this product which is labelled and exported as such originates in other countries. Scientists from the Czech Republic and Spain confirmed ...

An innovative façade that can turn solar energy into heat for residents' use will be installed next year in a building in Merida, Spain. After a series of tests, the complex insulation system will prove its capabilities ...

Dozens of projects have been promoted over the last decade to make industrial processes energy efficient, thus reducing costs and decreasing impact on the environment. However, a definitive solution to reducing energy consumption ...

Belgium on Monday unveiled plans for a controversial system to collect data on all airline passengers, as well as international train and ferry travellers, in the wake of a foiled attack on a train running between Belgium ...

Toiling in barren rock fields in southern Spain under temperatures as high as 108 degrees Fahrenheit, a team from NASA's Ames Research Center, Honeybee Robotics, and Spain's Centro de Astrobiologia (CAB, INTA-CSIC) is changing ...

Much of the European continent has been affected by severe drought in June and July 2015, one of the worst since the drought and heat wave of summer of 2003, according to the latest report by the JRC's European Drought Observatory ...

Musicians, composers and audio buffs are invited to help celebrate 40 years of ESA's tracking station network. Create some truly cosmic sound and you may win impressive prizes, including a trip to our anniversary gala event ...

Spain

Spain /ˈspeɪn/ (help·info) (Spanish: España, pronounced [esˈpaɲa] ( listen)), or the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España), is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with Gibraltar; to the north by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; and to the northwest and west by the Atlantic Ocean and Portugal. Spanish territory also includes the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the African coast, and two autonomous cities in North Africa, Ceuta and Melilla, that border Morocco. With an area of 504,030 km², Spain is the second largest country in Western Europe and the European Union after France.

Because of its location, the territory of Spain was subject to many external influences, often simultaneously, since prehistoric times and through the dawn of Spain as a country. Conversely, the country itself has been an important source of influence to other regions, chiefly during the Modern Era, when it became a global empire that has left a legacy of over 400 million Spanish speakers today.

Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a parliamentary government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a developed country with the ninth largest economy by nominal GDP, and high living standards (16th highest HDI). It is a member of the United Nations, European Union, NATO, OECD, and WTO.